


Truth Will Out

by holograms



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Rory is the Master
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/pseuds/holograms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things begin to change for Rory; he dreams strange things that don't make sense but are somehow familiar, he angers easier, and there's a drumming rhythm that creeps in his subconscious.  What interests him most is that he thinks the TARDIS is concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth Will Out

They say that when you sleep you always dream, even if you don’t remember doing so.  Rory dreams of things that don’t always make sense, like him swimming in a river of ice cream, or that the Doctor is actually a corgi that wears bowties and needs to be lifted up from the floor so he can work the TARDIS.  He also has dreams of faded memories of civilizations rising and falling while he remains stagnant, while he waits and waits and waits.  Then, at times, there are dreams about things that don’t make sense that seem to make _some_ sense, but when Rory wakes he has a horrible headache, with his pulse pounding in his ears.  Within minutes, he’s already forgotten what he had been dreaming about.

 

Amy’s words soothe him, but it’s the Doctor’s not so gentle grip on his shoulder that calms Rory.  Attacking the vice-vice-president of the alien world with a name that Rory can’t pronounce isn’t the smartest idea, but when his rage blinded him, shoving the heel of his hand in the alien’s face seemed like the only option.

The Doctor profusely apologizes.  “I’m so sorry, my friend here isn’t well,” and he makes circling motions around his head for the universally equivalent sign for _totally crazy._ Rory slumps onto the ground, and touches his mouth where the vice-vice-president had given a return smack.  Bringing his hand in front of his face, he sees his fingers stained with blood.

“What’s wrong with you?” Amy snaps, as she dabs at his mouth with a cloth.  He shrugs, and the Doctor crouches down next to Amy.

“You okay Rory?  The VVP has quite a right hook.  But not as good as yours,” he says.  Rory looks over his shoulders to see the alien’s retreating form, and the desire to run after him burns.

“He deserved it.  Should’ve hurt him worse,” Rory mutters, and Amy makes a small noise in the back of her throat.  He continues, “It isn’t fair to make children weapons of war.”

The Doctor smiles, the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, which Rory has learned to mean _oh humans, how inexperienced and daft you can be about the ways of the universe_.  “It’s just how things are done on this planet, honorable Rory.”

“But it’s not right.”

“I never said it was.”

Rory leaves it at that.

 

Rory believes that the TARDIS tries to talk to him sometimes.  It’s all soft sounds and chords that resonate in his chest that doesn’t add up to anything, but if he closes his eyes and lets her melody run through his head he can imagine it into something.  If he had to guess, he would think that she was trying to give him a hug — as well as a being like the TARDIS could hug.  Full of comfort, saying, _it’s okay, I understand._ Rory just wishes he knew what it was that she understood.

 

It’s after the incident in 4568 on Earth that Rory feels like the Doctor is watching with more suspicion.  One part of his mind thinks it’s reasonable because he never wants to see that look on Amy’s face ever again: fearful of him, like he isn’t who she thought he was.  But another voice is telling Rory that it’s perfectly fine to do what he did and that it _felt great._

With his bowtie askew, the Doctor speaks to Rory softly, “That was not the solution.”

Rory glances over to the Doctor, and the need to argue with him about what is right and how what the Doctor thinks is not always the best thing, and that sometimes when it comes to might versus right, might is the victor, and how it feels like they’ve been over this many times but the Doctor never learns — but that’s ridiculous that couldn’t have happened, he can’t place when this has occurred before although it feels so real, and his breathing quickens and his head hurts and his heart races in a pattern that feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest.

He pauses, and pushes it all back in his mind, like he’s been doing.  Silence, again.

“Sorry, Doctor.”  A grim smile rests on the Doctor’s face and he places a hand on Rory’s shoulder before letting it fall as he walks away.  He does hate to disappoint the Doctor, but Rory cannot help but be irritated with him.  There’s a feeling that Rory can’t completely identify, that instinct is telling him that the Doctor can destroy what he has built.

Later at night, in the privacy of their bedroom, Rory presses his face into the crook of Amy’s neck and whispers, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”  He’s thankful that he doesn’t have to explain, she just pulls him closer and he folds into her body.

If he loses this, he’ll go mad.

 

With the Doctor, moments like this are no longer a surprise: ones where Rory and the Doctor are left idling by while Amy has gone off to do something or another, and within that short time they get into trouble and they have to run, chased by an alien authority.  Rory’s chest twinges when the Doctor grabs his hand and Rory obediently follows behind him, and in the moment, he entirely trusts him.

Then: Rory and the Doctor are jammed together in possibly the smallest wardrobe that could accommodate their size, but only just.  The Doctor locks the door with the sonic screwdriver, and then says, “Ah, this is comfy.”  Rory disagrees; the Doctor has to bend his neck in a position that Rory knows must ache, and Rory grasps the Doctor’s arms because there’s nowhere else for them to go in the confined space.  Rory’s face is shoved into the Doctor’s chest, which becomes a bit of a sensory overload; the fabric of his shirt rubs against his cheek, and he smells the strangely spiced tea that the Doctor had spilt on his shirt earlier in the day, and the four beat staccato rhythm of the Doctor’s heart calms the anxiety that Rory didn’t realize he’d been harboring.

He drums the beat on the Doctor’s arm, tapping it out with his fingers — the steady beat of four.

The Doctor inhales sharply.  “What’re doing?” he whispers.

Rory glances up and the Doctor looks like he’s trying mask fear with curiosity — his eyes wide with his mouth gaping.  “I uh—,” Rory begins, it was something that was so familiar to him but then the context fades away and all he’s left with is the imprint in his mind.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know why I did that but I felt like I…”  He pauses, and then, “I needed to share it with you.”

The Doctor doesn’t say anything.

 

Three weeks later (after ten different stops of the TARDIS, which include: being arrested once, three cases of mistaken identity, one really bad case of indigestion, and Rory has six of what Amy is now calling “emotional outbursts”), while Rory sleeps he dreams of a tall man wild hair that is dressed in pinstripes.  The man seems familiar, and when Rory dies in the dream and the man holds him, it feels like it has already happened.

The man who is called Rory Williams wakes with a start, and once again it feels as though the TARDIS is speaking to him, and he realizes that the man in the pinstripes is the same as the man with the colorful scarf and is as the same as the man with the braces and bowtie.

He jolts out of bed, leaving Amy tossing and turning, and walks and walks until he finds the Doctor leaning against the control panel in the main room.  “Doctor,” he flatly states.  He sees the Doctor’s shoulders hunch.

The Doctor turns around, and looks so incredibly sad, like he always does when faced with a problem with no solution.  “My dear, sweet Rory.”

“What else do you call me?”

“Master,” the Doctor says, and Rory’s heartbeat speeds up and the rhythm in his head gets louder.

“How long have you known?” Rory – the Master – one in the same, asks.

“Longer than you have.”  The Doctor sighs and runs a hand through his hair.  “How did you do it?”

He thinks, and remembers, “There was a crack in Time…and a young boy near it, that was by himself.  He died.  I resumed his form and became him.  Nobody knew any difference.  So I made myself forget, and I was Rory.”  He grins manically.  “The perfect plan.”

The Doctor walks closer to him.  “You can’t go on like this.  You have to choose.”  He waits for a beat of four.  “Think of Amy.”

And he knows that the Doctor is right, this time.  Rage creeps into his subconscious, as it has been doing lately and he realizes it’ll always end up the same.  Then things like love and empathy curl in his chest, and maybe, possibly, it could be different this time.

“I’m just Rory,” he says, and the Doctor nods and gasps the sides of his head and there’s an inkling of the familiarity of their minds together before—

 

The Doctor sits at the kitchen table in the Pond-Williams residence, when he dares to ask the question he’s been wondering _since_.  “Do you remember if you were ever sick when you were young?  Like really really sick.  Or injured?”

Rory furrows his brows.  “When I was five.  I came down with a really bad infection and everyone thought that I was going to die, but…they said that how quickly I healed was a miracle.”  He pushes his scrambled eggs around on his plate.  “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” the Doctor lies.  Rory and Amy make a face at each other, one that the Doctor has begun to identify as _coupley-shared-thinking-that-we-think-the-Doctor-is-a-weirdo._

He ignores the guilt of the secret he’s left with, but it was for the best.  Rory Williams is meant to be the one to thrive in the universe; the other man is gone.

 

Rory Williams dies at age 82 in New York.  And that’s all.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a looooong time ago when it was a theory around the internet, and this is my effort to write something about it, because I liked the idea of that fan-theory.
> 
> Reviews are appreciated!


End file.
